I got back from the appointment in town with Howard and tried to predict Jake’s reaction. The good news was I didn’t have to use the nuclear option. Which was putting the ranch up for sale. The bad news was there was no magic clause in the trust that would let me break it early.

However, what Howard did find were these companies that would buy out the trust my dad had set up for me with my mom’s life insurance money. Meaning they take twenty-five percent of the total, but I get my money now. Howard discouraged it as not a financially sound move, but knowing the amount it would leave me with was more than enough to do what I needed to do, the decision was easy.

Twenty- five percent to free Jake was definitely worth it.

I could have told Jake what I was trying to do, but any time I thought about it I kept coming back to the idea that it was better if I presented it to him as already being done.

This way he couldn’t talk me out of it. Because, not going to lie, it probably would have been pretty easy to do. I had to remember I was doing this for him. Saving him for once, and it helped to keep me focused.

I officially signed the paperwork, and the money would be deposited in my account in three to five business days.

I came in the front door and made my way back to the kitchen, where I could hear him.

He was listening to some country music while he was stirring something in pot.

“Smells good.”

“Beef stew.”

“When did you learn how to make beef stew?”

“When I looked up on Google, how do you make beef stew. What’s in the bag?”

I pulled out the bottle of champagne I bought. To kind of make this a celebration.

His eyes narrowed. “How did you buy that?”

Right, because it was one thing to drink at Pete’s, but another thing to buy alcohol underage.

“I bought it from Pete. Told him I needed something to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

I swallowed. I put the champagne down on the kitchen island, took my coat off, and tossed it on one of the kitchen chairs.

Then I couldn’t delay it any longer.

“Your freedom,” I said and tried to smile. I probably looked really lame.

“What does that mean?”

He was giving me his full attention. He turned the music off and put a lid on the stew.

“Okay, remember when I said that I could fix our problem? Well, I found a way and I did it.”

“What problem? Ellie, what are you talking about?”

“The only reason we stayed married was because of the money. I couldn’t give you what you needed to buy the land, and we needed to take the loan from the bank to save the ranch. I found a way around all that. We have the money now. We can get divorced. Whenever we want.”

I choked a little on the word divorce, but other than that I think it all came out as well as it could have.

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me. “Ellie, what’s this about?”

“It’s about what I said. Getting a divorce, giving you your life back. It’s what you wanted.”

“What I wanted?” he asked quietly.

“When we had that fight and you said you were trapped and you hated me…”

“Damn it, is that what this is about? You said you accepted my apology,” he snapped at me.

“I did. I do. That’s not what matters, Jake. What you said was the truth. You are trapped and it would be really easy to resent me for that. I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t have you stay in a situation where you would even be able to think the word hate, much less actually feel that about me.”

“Ellie, I was pissed. Frustrated. I blew up. You said you were okay, but this whole time you weren’t? Talk about holding a grudge.”

Okay now I was starting to get pissed off. I was making this huge sacrifice for him and he was angry with me?

Immediately, I realized I needed to calm down. I was dropping what was a pretty big bombshell on him and it was going to take him time to process it. Eventually, he would see that I was right.

“This is not a grudge, Jake. Listen to me. We can’t do this for another two and a half years. I can’t not be jealous the next time there is another Carol…”

“There won’t be another Carol. That was a mistake.”

“Then what? You’re going to live like a monk for the next two and a half years? You were right. I can’t get into bed with you every night, have sex with you every night, and then watch you walk away. But I also can’t bear the thought of you being with anyone else. Or me, for that matter. That does make us trapped.”

“Why does this constantly have to be about sex, Ellie?”

“It’s not sex, Jake it’s us! We don’t know what we are. We’re not lovers. We’re not a couple. But we’re not just friends anymore. We’re in this weird limbo and it’s not sustainable. You are the most important person in my life. I’m the most important person in yours. I don’t want you to end up hating me.”

“I would never hate you,” he growled. “I was pissed. I said something I shouldn’t have. I thought it was over.”

I took a deep breath. I had to hit him with the hard punch. If only to get him to really hear what I was saying.

“Do you want to stay married to me? Forever?”

His mouth opened and then he snapped it closed.

I nodded. “You told me before when you married me, you thought it was temporary. You said sex would complicate everything between us and you were right. We’re at this place where if we don’t walk away, I think we’ll drive each other crazy with everything we’re not.”

“Walk away? Where the hell am I going to go? I don’t have a house, remember?”

This was the second part of the plan. I called it Phase II, a.k.a. Save My Sanity.

“I’ve been thinking and I decided I want to give college a try. I always knew that ranching would be my life, but I never expected for it to happen so soon. I’ve never gotten a chance to even think about wanting something else. Now that I have the money, I can do that. I can go to school, branch out a little, and you can live here until you have a chance to get your house fixed. I’ll hire someone to replace me in terms of what I was contributing work-wise, so you’re not stuck with it all. I can handle the books from school, but you’ll still need another pair of hands full time. Howard’s already put an ad in most of the ranching magazines for me.”

He didn’t interrupt my speech, which I thought was a good thing.

“That’s what you really want? To leave here and go to school?”

No, it wasn’t what I really wanted. But anything else was not fair to him.

“I think if we’re going to try and go back to being what we used to be to each other, we’re going to need space.”

“Space.”

He said the word like it was equivalent to shit.

“Okay. Then tell me what you think. What do you want?”

His jaw clenched. “It’s not about what I want, Ellie. It’s about what you want.”

“No. It isn’t. I asked you to save me, and you did. You lived up to your part of the bargain. Now we can end this. Why are you so angry about that?”

“How?”

“How...”

“The money. How did you get the money?”

“This annuity company bought out my trust fund. They take a pretty steep cut, but I get the money up front.”

He ran his hand through this hair. “Son of… That was supposed to be your security blanket.”

“Jake, there’s enough money to pay off the loan, pay you what you’re owed, and send me to school. Beyond that, it gets us out of this situation.”

“I didn’t think we were in a situation. I thought we were living our lives.”

“Because it’s not the same for you,” I cried.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means… I have feelings, Jake. And I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to take those feelings and justify all of them. I’ve done it too. You’re a replacement for my father. What I’m feeling is gratitude. I’m too young to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not because I’ve never known anything else. But it doesn’t change the fact that they are there. Maybe this really isn’t about you. Maybe I’m doing the selfish thing and saving myself two and half years of agony. This split is going to hurt me. I told you that. It will hurt worse the longer we go on like we’re doing now.”

He stared at me for a second, hands on his hips, like he was processing everything I said.

“If I said I did want to stay married to you, then what?”

For a second it felt like my heart was going to burst. Like he was offering me this dream come true. Except I knew when I’d laid this out in my head, I had to be careful for things like this.

“I would say I have doubts about that. That I would always have doubts because I knew when we married you thought it was temporary and not because you loved me. I think we have to do this. For both our sakes.”

“When?”

I blinked. “Whenever we want. The money will be in the bank in a few days. I’ll settle the loan and sort out the rest. I’ve already signed up for courses and arranged for a dorm room. I need to be there the first week of January. Actually I was hoping you could take me. I’m not allowed to have a car on campus my first year.”

“You’ve been planning this for weeks,” he said as if I cold-cocked him. “And you didn’t say a damn thing to me.”

“I wanted to wait until I knew I could do it all. The college acceptance came through last week. Also I wasn’t really sure how you would react.”

“Not sure?” he asked, exasperated.

“You gave up two years of your life, Jake. For me. I couldn’t ask you to give up another two and a half. Not when there was something I could do to fix it. I thought you might actually be… relieved. You said when you started seeing Carol, you thought that might be a way to return us to the way were. It wasn’t. I only got angry and resentful with you. This is my attempt. Time away. Separation. Then maybe when I come back and you’re living on your land, we can find a way to become… friends again.”

* * *

She was right. I hated that she was so damn right. There was no way we were going to keep this up for two years. No way I was going to keep my hands off her for two more years. Not when I knew what she felt like, what she sounded like when she came.

God, what she sounded like.

Except I had started kind of getting used to the idea that it wasn’t such a bad thing. Yes, we came into this marriage in the strangest of ways. Yes, it would be really hard to know if her feelings were legitimately about me and not about the situation. But would it be the worst thing to be married to your best friend?

Still, the idea of her going away… in some ways I hated it. In other ways I thought it was something she needed to do. We married when she was sixteen freaking years old. She’d never spent more than a week away from this ranch her whole life.

She said we needed space for us to become friends again. The truth was she needed time to explore the world if we were going to be something beyond friends. She had to have the opportunity for once in her life to make a choice.

The choice she’d lost the day Sam fell to his knees, clutching his chest.

“Say something,” she prompted. “Are you really mad?”

“I’m not mad, Ellie. I’m… stunned. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“But I’m not wrong. Am I?”

“You were wrong not to discuss this with me. We should have done this together.”

“It was my money and my decision.”

She lifted her chin then and I had this crazy urge to sit her on the kitchen island and show her exactly who she was messing with. Then I remembered all the reasons I kept myself from touching her.

The same reasons she gave for leaving.

What if I had just fucked her?

I let out a sigh. “Then when?”

“When what?”

“When do you want to do this? Divorce.”

Her lip wobbled and I could see she was telling the truth about this hurting. She wasn’t alone. It felt like I was asking her when she wanted to cut off my right hand.

“How about after Christmas? Right before I leave. That way no one is asking us a bunch of questions around the holidays.”

I nodded. “Okay. Tell Howard to do what he’s got to do.”

“Should I pop the cork?”

“No.” This wasn’t something to be happy about. “How about we save it for Christmas? Our last one.”

Geez, now I could feel my own damn lip beginning to wobble. Ellie was going to leave me. Ellie was going to go to college and learn new things and meet new people. Everything was going to change.

I hated it but I had to accept it.

“Good idea. Champagne doesn’t really go with beef stew anyway. Hey, speaking of Christmas, what do you want this year?”

Her. I wanted her.

“I need socks.”

She made a face. “Jake, I’m not getting you socks for Christmas. That’s lame.”

I turned back to the stove and ran a spoon the through the stew. “You asked. I answered.”

“I’ll come up with something way better.”

She usually did. “Stew is ready. Hang up your coat and for the love of God take your boots that have been sitting by the back door all damn day upstairs.”

“Yes, sir. Grouchy much? You would think a man who’s just been given his parole would be a lot more chipper.”

“I want to live to see my freedom, and if I trip over those boots one more time I may not.”

We were going through the motions. Saying the right things. Keeping it as normal as we could.

We were both lying. I knew it.